THE LAST PHASE OF THE SAILING SHIP.

Dunstan Times, Issue 2482, 24 May 1909, Page 8

THE LAST PHASE OF THE SAILING SHIP.

(By a Shipowner.)

It is always with regret that one notes the decline of an industry, especially when SO' much romance attaches to it, as is the case with oid-fasliioned sailing vessels, the heir, in a sense to which the steamer cannot lay claim, of a long line of deepsea adventurers. A worthy old ship-owner of the ’seventies is said, to have refused a proffered charter with the scornful comment, “Our ships weren’t built to carry coals.’ But the coal-carrying days came in spite of him, and it is not easy to realise what turn the vigorous expression of his feelings would take nowadays, when his Jess independent successor is grateful for the opportunity of carrying anything, anywhere, and at any rate of freight. While the ultimate extinction of the sailing ship has become a much-para-graphed commonplace, it is perhaps scarcely realised how parlous is the actual position, and how long it is since she has ceased to count as a factor in the world’s commerce, iiie revival of the early ’nineties was brief and of deplorable memory to the investor. The later years of the decade witnessed an almost complete cessation of building, tantamount to an admission that as a money-making machine the sailing ship had outlived her day And her record since then, with brief glimpses of prosperity, has only accentuated. the fact that she lags superlluous on the commercial stage. The out put of the French yards up to 1902, fostered by an extravagant scale of bounties, may be disregarded as a freak resulting from the ill-directed efforts of paternal Government to revive impossible conditions. In the long run no one benefited from the experiment, not even the shipbuilder whose activities were diverted to ,t, fruitless issue, and least of all the cautious French investor who had reluctantly risked his savings on the uncertain sea. But as a result the last straw of an unfair competition was added to the groaning back of the British sailing-ship owner. The few vessels launched since then have been the product of ultra-conserva-ism or of sentiment, and must have proved costly playthings to their owners, who have now ruefully to contemplate accumulated debit balances and an almost unrealisable property. For losing voyages have been the order of the day, and to show a profit it would be necessary to act upon the principle of the firm of ship managers of whom it used to be said that they charged outward expenses to capital and inward expenses to the next voyage. It is true that from time to time a timid note of optimism has been sounded. The increased cost of fuel has, on paper at least, promised to prevent or delay the steamer's triumphant progress. The huge cargoes lifted by the modern tramp have been asserted to be difficult to market, and therefore undesirable from the merchant s point of view. The lengthy passages audi leisurely discharge of sailing craft have seemed, favorable to the speculative shipper of certain bulk commodities. But, in spite of all theory to the contrary, the steamer has persisted in bunkering at what appeared, to be prohibitive prices; shippers have found the increase of capacity to be only comparative in the stream of an inevitable tendency, and speculative merchants have reckoned the loss of opportunity to sell and resell on a protracted passage to be more than compensated by regularity of shipment and arrival. It is not surprising that owners, crippled by accumulated losses, unable to see in any direction an out-and-homo voyage which would "square yards,” have thrown their arriving fleets on a reluctant market. The question with them has been not so much at what price shall we soli, but at what price' can we induce a buyer to relieve us of our property. The depletion of the British register proceeds rapidly, financial pressure in many instances forcing the pace. Sentiment would fain decide otherwise, but it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the sailing ship can perfectly well be done without. There is not a trade operation which would be disturbed more than temporarily by her removal. Harbor facilities are improved all over the world. Ports which formerly were barred to vessels of extreme burden have marched with the times or have seen their trade pass to competitors. The coastal links from the great maritime entrepots have enable;! large cargoes to be carried in one bottom and distributed at will. The strongholds of the old-fashioued craft have been invaded one by one, until there is no trade routs in which the übiquitous tramp has not found a footing and, having found it, has retained it. {Some faith has been pinned to the adoption of a system of auxiliary engine power, of which "the German five-master K. C. Hickmers is the most recent and successful example. Undoubtedly there is room for development here if a sufficiently trustworthy and simple motor system can be applied. But its development is much more likely to be towards an increasing reliance upon the motor propulsion, with the final outcome, as in the case of the early steamers, of the discarding of the unnecessary sail power. And in any case there is no available system capable of adoption by the existing sailing fleet. _ It would seem that the steel or iron sailer is confronted with the same fate as the wooden craft which she herself ousted. The last days of the old Quebec fleet supply a striking parallel. For a time foreigners taught them freely and employed them in the trades which their formerowners had relinquished. Then, finding it beyond even their power to make ends meet, they resolutely tightened their purse strings and refused to be further persuaded. One factor which hastened the exit of the wooden vessel presses equally upon her successor. Kates of insurance had become prohibitive. Annual premiums ranging up to twenty guineas per cent, were ex: acted on vessels engaged in the timbercarrying trade. If the toll of the modern underwriter is not in appearance so heavy, it is almost so in fact, when the inflated values are considered on which premiums are calculated. And it seems worthy of consideration whether the shipowner would not be wiser to face things as they are, write off his lost capital once for all, and pay a nominally enhanced rate on the actual value of his property. It is not the insurance on the hull which pinches so much as the insurance on cargo. A full cargo of grain may he covered from Australia to Europe by tramp steamer at 10s per cent., against 40s for shipment by sail. With both carriers competing at approximately the same rate of freight the effect of the discrimination against the sailer is obvious. And in the light of the working results of existing mutual insurance dubs, co-operative underwriting, though often proposed as a remedy, would be likely to prove more fatal than the disease itself. In one direction a serious effort has been made of late years to apply co-opera-tive principles to the business. Much was hoped from the International Union of Sailing Ship Owners, which started five years ago with an ambitious programme and a comprehensive schedule of rites to be adopted by its members as a minimum in the principal trades. But although its solidarity, outwardly, has been remarkable, the logic of circumstance has forced its promoters to abandon their positions one by one. Thq basic error lay in the presumption that a certain proportion of the world’s trade must be carried by sail. That being granted, it followed that_ a mutual agreement to adhere to the union rates, which were fixed just above starvation point, would ensure steady, if not very remunerative, employment to the dwindling sailing fleet. But the course of events has proved that the sailing ship, being no longer a factor by herself, can

lay down no conditions. She is powerless to regulate competition from without. Given a return of prosperity to the tramp steamer, who, in turn, is under the heel of the liner, and a share of the less desirable range of employment will open automatically to the wind-driven craft. The sole element of hopefulness .in her situation is that such a return of prosperity must come. Were the tramp herseL flourishing, the case would be absolutely hopeless. But the tramp is not. And it is inconceivable that.'the prosperity should not come again to her, for she is still the preponderating element in ocean commerce, and as a monev-making machine she must find her level. ‘ It is hard to say what remainder of tolerated utility such a revival may confer upon the sailing vessel. But certainly not for long. She may drag out the balance of her days in out-of-the-way trades where, rustbitten and forlorn, she drudges under a foreign flag. But the great trade routes are definitely closing to her. From many points of view her disappearance will be regretted. Much of the romance of the sea will pass with her lofty spars and wide-spread wings. Though that again may be illusion, for just so spoke the conservative sailor men of the days of transition from wood to iron